GENUINE DIVERSITY

Particularly in the United States, 'diversity' has become a mantra, and universities aim for a mixture of ethnicities and skin colours. True diversity, though, is about a variety of experiences, opinions, perspectives, cultures and circumstances. We would be concerned if all our students looked alike (and happily they do not), but more concerned if they all thought alike. So we deliberately bring together students who, by their differences, are able to challenge one another to consider alien points of view and to think of their own position as one among many possible positions, not as a fixed and secure reference point from which to criticise everyone else.

students from six continents

We scour the world every year for the brightest, most curious, most ambitious young scholars we can find, and we are proud that we have already welcomed elite students from fifty-two countries.

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We aim to recruit students whose background and perspective will enrich the experience of the other participants on the course. The part of the world you grew up and the cultural background of your family can enable you to enlighten people from very different backgrounds. In the process we might all hope to become more cosmopolitan, tolerant, and broadminded. 

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To increase our international diversity we have a special fund dedicated to helping people travel to Oxford from low-income countries. This travel grant can be awarded in addition to a bursary.

UK DESTINATIONS

Our students go on to do great things, both in and out of the academic arena. We don't possess the secret formula for success in university admissions [hint: there is no secret formula], but we are certainly proud of our alumni who are admitted to competitive and prestigious institutions in Britain, America and around the world.

The graphic on the right of this paragraph shows the academic destinations that our students in the past ten years have attended in the United Kingdom. These destinations are illustrative of both the intellectual calibre and the academic interests of John Locke Institute summer school students.

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US DESTINATIONS

A large minority of our summer school students come from the United States, but an even larger number go to university in America after they finish school. We encourage all our students to explore opportunities overseas, and we work with US college admissions experts to advise our students how to identify the right destination for each one, and how to make a compelling application.

In the last ten years, John Locke alumni have attended around fifty different American destinations, but just over half of them have gone on to one of just seven colleges: Chicago, Columbia, Georgetown, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Yale and Harvard.